10/15/2025
Following the shoreline of the Untroubled Waters in Torn's Rest, the Students came upon a solitary woman sitting at the water's edge, right where they planned on delving into the depths to find the final Waverbender Oar
The woman was crackling with lightning, and when they approached her, she seemed to welcome them by ceasing the lightning strikes around her, and acknowledging their presence with nods and smiles, if not active communication.
The group found a few ways to get Gwenna, Otho, and Brynn ready to enter the Untroubled Waters, while Ridley, Roach, and Val stayed and tried to learn more about the woman, with little success.
The three who went into the waters found the shipwreck of the Wavebender but it was surrounded by zombies and a monstrous beast in the shape of a bleached white skull with tentacles emerging from beneath it.
When the battle commended with these creatures, the woman on the shore became alert and spoke for the first time, telling Ridley and Val that their companions were in danger, as they'd began a fight with "the beast below."
The woman inscribed a mark on each of their foreheads, scarring them for life, but instilling them with temporary powers of immortality and an ability to speed through the waters to help the rest of the Students.
After the fight, in which they had precious time while the skull creature was turned by Ridley, they found the oar within the Wavebender along one of its placements.
Val also noticed, through her expertise with shipwrighting in Trine, that the ship was actually a hybrid between aquatic and aerial travel, and the oars were used to speed it across the water and then launch it into the air to travel over small islands and land masses. It had ended up in the Untroubled Waters due to not clearing the distance of the entire Kindred Isle, and it had come from the south.
While the oar was being retrieved, Gwenna and Otho explored the area and found a pile of ancient battle armor that looked like it had attached to the ship and rode with it to its final resting place.
Ridley raised some of the zombies they'd defeated and brought them with the group as they made their escape back to the woman.
The group realized she was the Untroubled Woman, and upon seeing the oar, she demanded it from Otho, claiming it belonged to her.
Then, seeing the zombies, the Untroubled Woman broke down crying. She approached each in turn and spoke softly to them, and the Students realized they were the remnants of her crew, and she must have been aboard the Wavebender when it crashed.
The Untroubled Woman explained she had fought the gods in the Constellation War, and she hated them with everything she was.
When the group claimed they were trying to keep the oars away from a demigod, the Untroubled Woman told them to bring Uqupa to her, and she would deal with him personally.